4.3 Preliminary Guide: 3d Models, Items, Holiday Changes, and More

4.3 news is finally here and it's a dataminer's paradise. Perculia and myself have spent the past six and a half hours going through the 1600+ items on Wowhead's PTR site and summed up our first impressions: what's new, what's cool, and what's useful. Below you'll find everything in this build; from epic gem stats, new vanity pets, and an explanation of preliminary item levels, this mini-guide should prove helpful if you hate database hunting. We've also highlighted some of the radical class changes, putting them next to Ghostcrawler's commentary from earlier today.

Oh, and we have some cool models to share--if you're into that sort of stuff.

One quick thing: take all of this with a grain of salt. This is the first build of this patch's PTR. It's messy, it's unforgiving, and it's definitely a few cards short of an entire Darkmoon Faire deck.

Datamined Items

Gear

PvE

All of the ilevels are confusing, so let's break it down how this new gear is laid out.

5-mans will likely be giving 378 gear and it looks like they'll have several good trinkets, inspired heavily by the heroic versions of tier 11 content.

People were upset to hear that there will no longer be tier for badges--however, it looks like LFR will be a much easier difficulty level and players will be able to just queue for raids non-stop (there is no proposed lockout) to be able to farm for tier.

There are no other ilevels and pieces up. That said, since ilevel 410 is the gladiator stuff for 4.3, it's likely this is around what the normal tier 13 ilevel will be. We'll have to wait and see!

PvP

PvP gear will match PvE levels and there will be several sets that help players who didn't PvP in season 10 to catch up. It will be ilevel 390 "Ruthless" season 10 sets for the upgradeable Ruthless pieces--so much like last season, players will be able to get "free" PvP gear with honor if they choose to grind when the next season starts.

In addition, starter sets for PvP were added--now ilvl 377. We're not sure if these will be new patterns to learn, or as in 4.2, if old recipes will simply be upgraded to reflect the increased stats. Some examples are Vicious Charscale Chest and Vicious Dragonscale Chest.

Many older players remember leveling Leatherworking with the Tough Scorpid patterns. Unfortunately, the mobs that dropped these patterns were removed in Cataclysm--looks like there's a new way to get these patterns on the PTR.

Darkmoon Faire

In 4.3, the Darkmoon Faire will have its own zone--complete with special achievements, loot, and vanity pets. We can learn a lot about the atmosphere of the new Darkmoon Faire by looking at the sort of light-hearted items datamined thus far. It seems players will use Darkmoon Prize Ticket and Darkmoon Game Token to participate in games and buy vanity items. Also, don't forget--the Darkmoon Faire will allow players to buy special vanity items for transmogrification purposes!

Trading Card Game

"Throne of the Tides," the new TCG expansion, is due out in a few weeks. Bloat the Bubble Fish, Throwing Starfish, and the Wasteland Tallstrider give an exclusive cosmetic pet, toy, and mount to show off around Azeroth. They all haven't shown up in the database (though tons of Tallstriders have) but we wanted to make sure you knew!

Faction Food

These foods are separate from those needed for the Darkmoon Faire achievement--perhaps they're a holiday-themed treat. It is convenient how they restore a percentage of health while eating, meaning these scale perfectly for alts of any level.

Tier 13 Models

Other Models

NPCs

Mounts

Items

PVP

PVE

Objects

Class Changes

General Important Changes

All raid and party buffs affecting attack power (e.g. ) are now changed. Those that grant 10% increased attack power now continue to give 10% attack power to ranged, but now give 20% to melee.This is important because it finally buffs melee, helping them overcome the problem in tier 12 where they were less desirable than their ranged brethern.

has been redesigned for tanks. It no longer ramps up--instead it instantly goes to 33%. In addition, as it updates, it's always at least 33% of the damage taken by the attack.

The amount of experience it takes to level 71-80 is retuned and reduced by 1/3rd. Many Group quests in Outland and Northrend have been re-tuned to allow players to complete them solo. They are no longer labeled as Group quests.

Threat generated by classes in active tanking modes has been increased to 500% damage done, up from 300%.

Helpful with Looking for Raid coming and their promotion of PUGs.

We discussed some of our Blood changes in a recent blog. We wanted to make it less punitive for DKs to miss Death Strike. Long term, we still want to make hit and expertise matter more to tanks, not less, but it wasn’t fair to punish DK players for working the “right way” when the other tanks aren’t there yet. We also reduced the cooldown of Outbreak for Blood DKs so that applying diseases doesn’t compete with Death Strike runes as much, and we simplified Blade Barrier so that there is less pressure to spend runes instead of sitting on them.

For now all we have done is bumped Bone Shield’s charges. We may still try out the “big hit dampening” described in the "Bloody Mitigation" blog.

Patch Notes

Death Strike now heals the death knight whether or not the attack misses, or is dodged/parried. As a result of this change, Death Strike no longer refunds its rune cost if it fails to hit the target, as the death knight will still receive the healing effect.

We’re okay with Resto druids using Wild Growth frequently, but we think we allowed it to become too powerful given its ease of use. As I suggested above, this may or may not be sufficient to nerf Resto druid throughput overall. The change to the Glyph of Wild Growth has positive and negative elements. We heard from druids that they felt like they didn’t have as many major glyph choices as intended, since the Glyph of Wild Growth was such a no-brainer for raiding druids -- it increased the number of Wild Growth targets with no downside. We want major glyphs to be a decision, which usually involves them having some kind of downside. With the AE heals, we thought the downside might be that the healers may not be using their AE heals necessarily, but having seen two raid tiers of content now, we’re confident that the glyphs did not have as much of a downside. (We changed the Glyphs of Circle of Healing and Light of Dawn for similar reasons).

We changed Seal of Insight to no longer return 15% base mana and then changed Judgment of the Pure to provide mana regeneration so that Holy paladins would not need to Judge every eight seconds. With these changes, they will want to Judge every 30 seconds, which seems more reasonable. Judging every eight seconds is hard to ask someone who is also targeting players a lot to heal them.

We made several changes to Holy Radiance to make it a cast time spell. We felt like Holy paladins couldn’t go into a group healing mode because Holy Radiance had a long cooldown and in the absence of a cast time, didn’t compete with any other spell. With this change (and the Light of Dawn change below), paladins can opt for an AE healing “rotation” (insofar as healers can ever have a rotation) of using Holy Radiance -> Light of Dawn instead of Holy Light et al. -> Word of Glory.

Several Holy talents changed to support the change to Holy Radiance, such as allowing it to benefit from Illuminated Healing, Clarity of Purpose, and Infusion of Light. It didn’t make sense for Speed of Light to be triggered by a cast-time spell, so we caused the Paragon of Virtue talent to lower the cooldown on Divine Protection, so that Holy wouldn’t lose quite so much functionality of Speed of Light. Speed of Light has definitely been nerfed compared to 4.2, but we feel it’s an acceptable change given the entire package.

We reversed the glyph for Light of Dawn. Instead of providing an additional target to Light of Dawn, the glyph now reduces the number of targets but increases the throughput. Light of Dawn was not a very useful spell in 10-player raids or similar small groups, like Arena teams. This glyph should allow paladins to tailor Light of Dawn for their group size.

Patch Notes

Holy Radiance now has a 3.0-second cast time, no cooldown, and requires a player target. That target is imbued with Holy Radiance, which heals them and all group members within 10 yards instantly, and continues to heal them by a smaller amount every 1 second for 3 seconds.

Seal of Insight, when Judged, no longer returns 15% base mana to the paladin. Judging Seal of Insight still causes damage, and melee attacks will still restore 4% of base mana.

Speed of Light no longer triggers from Holy Radiance and no longer lowers the Holy Radiance cooldown. Speed of Light now only triggers from Divine Protection.

, in addition to its current effects, now also causes Holy Radiance to always generate 1 charge of Holy Power at all times.

Glyphs

Glyph of Light of Dawn now lowers the number of targets to 4, instead of increasing targets to 6, but increases healing by 25%.

We were seeing too many situations where a raid wanted one or even two Disc priests at the expense of a Holy priest. We think part of the problem was Holy’s lack of a strong raid cooldown, so we replaced the State of Mind talent (which was fairly weak ever since Chakra had an unlimited duration) with Heavenly Voice that boosts the healing of Divine Hymn to make it more competitive with Power Word: Barrier. We also increased the number of targets of Divine Hymn from three to five.

We also reduced the mana cost of Power Word: Sanctuary. We think Holy has sufficient AE throughput, but this spell in particular was very expensive.

We wanted to change the Glyph of Circle of Healing to make it less of a no-brainer as I explained above under Wild Growth. In the case of the Holy priest, we thought the healing done by CoH was appropriate (which was not the case for the druid) so we had the glyph increase the mana cost instead. Relying too much on Circle of Healing in inappropriate situations (such as when only a few characters are injured) risks hurting the priest’s efficiency with this glyph.

We rebuilt Spirit of Redemption in a different way. We aren’t trying to change the power of the talent at all, but we did want to make it feel more responsive (less lag between death and Spirit) as well as clean up a few bugs.

We made changes to Wind Shear to restrict the short cooldown version to the DPS shaman (who have the Reverberation talent) and make Restoration less potent at interrupting. We think Restoration is currently too useful in PvP relative to other healers because of a potent, ranged interrupt. We don’t think this nerf will have major PvE ramifications.

We changed Mental Quickness and Flametongue Weapon to hopefully put a nail in the coffin of Enhancement shaman using spellpower weapons. We want Enhancement using melee weapons. Players who have been doing so should notice no change in their DPS. Players who have been using caster weapons or armor will find that gear is no longer useful to them.

Elemental’s AE damage was still not competitive with the rotations of other DPS specs, so we buffed Earthquake and removed the cooldown on Chain Lightning. These two spells should be the bulk of Elemental’s AE DPS, while spreading Flame Shocks should be an Enhancement mechanic (see below).

We also tried to improve Enhancement’s AE. In this case, the DPS was fairly competitive, but applying the AE was a headache with having to tab through multiple targets to spread Flame Shocks. Enhance can now use Lava Lash to spread Flame Shock (and the bonus granted from Improved Lava Lash has been baked into the base Lava Lash ability, so Enhance should not suffer any DPS loss as a consequence).

After checking in on thousands of raid attempts, we were concerned that Resto shaman were not competitive with the other healers, especially on 10 player-content and on fights where the raid needs to stay spread out. It’s okay for healers to have niches where they really shine, but we felt like Resto wasn’t experiencing enough of these. We buffed Riptide outright and gave Ancestral Healing a new mechanic of boosting the target’s max health. These buffs are also intended to help offset some of the loss of Wind Shear for PvP.

As you can see, we changed shaman mechanics quite a bit, some of which will be met with cheers and others will be met with poo flinging. Please try out the changes when the PTR goes live and offer us constructive feedback if you want us to discuss any concerns you might have. That goes for all of these changes of course.

No doubt when 4.3 goes live, there will be even more changes and some of the above will be modified or redacted. Part Two of this blog will explain our intent behind the final changes.

Patch Notes

no longer increases spell damage. It now increases all non-physical damage done by the wielder by 5%.

now reduces the cooldown of Wind Shear by 10/20 seconds, up from 0.5/1 second.

Enhancement

now causes Lava Lash to spread a Flame Shock debuff from the target to up to 4 nearby targets. This excludes crowd-controlled targets and those who already have a Flame Shock debuff from the shaman.

Improved Lava Lash no longer increases base Lava Lash damage by 15/30%. This increase has been rolled into the base Lava Lash skill.

Mental Quickness has been redesigned. Instead of granting the shaman spell power, Mental Quickness now causes Enhancement shaman spells to behave as though the shaman has spell power equal to 55% of attack power. Enhancement shaman spells no longer benefit from spell power from other sources.

Restoration

now also causes the shaman's heals to increase the target's maximum health by 5/10% of the amount healed, up to a maximum of 10% of the target's maximum health, for 15 seconds. This effect does not stack if multiple Restoration shaman are present, and does not apply to heals from procs.

Riptide's periodic healing coefficient has been increased by 50%. The initial direct heal is unchanged.

Comments

Comment by Mojoworkn

Wow, that is a LOT of information to sift through. Just commenting on what struck my fancy:

-I'm not a huge fan of the hunter tier 13, but if I look past the helmet, the coloration and style of the tier isn't all that bad.

-I'm liking the new models of Nozdormu and Ysera. A jellyfish Old God NPC mount? Sounds interesting.

-I think it's going to be interesting to see how the Darkmoon Faire works out. Are players going to be able to obtain everything in the first week, and then have no obligation to go back the next month? Or will players be frustrated that it might take months to get all of the rewards? And more importantly, will it only be accesible during the first week of the month? So many questions.

-The drake mounts look awesome! Not that I would ride one, and they seem to just be a recolor of the legendary mount (I believe?)

While it seems to be the usual formula for an patch (meaning there aren't any brand new ideas presented) I think that this may turn out to be an interesting patch!

Comment by Ilaniel

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:56:54 -0500

I am just posting to say that Ashelia and Perculia are my heroes. Amazing work! <3

Comment by Voltt

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:58:00 -0500

I. Want. That. Bear.

Comment by kickthecat

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:02:50 -0500

Not bad

Engineering again gets the shaft again without anything fun added to make

Comment by Ashelia

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:04:35 -0500

Not bad

Engineering again gets the shaft again without anything fun added to make

Gonna say this once, hopefully bolded and 'loud' enough for everyone: this is the first PTR patch. There will be dozens. More than likely there will be hundreds of new recipes and/or crafting tweaks. I expect another couple thousand items alone. Don't worry--yet anyway! =)

Comment by Monday

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:08:13 -0500

Really like the Hunter T13, actually. That face looks more like a warlock helmet, though. The goat face is more of a demonic thing than a natural thing, imo.

Comment by KingSnakeX4

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:12:44 -0500

I dunno, I'm kinda liking the Hunter helm... gives it a kinda creepy donnie darko bunny feel (esp the purple one). I'm also not opposed to using dragon skulls as helms either.

Comment by kickthecat

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:20:48 -0500

I do understand this is the 1st ptr patch and there is room for improvement, but it could not have hurt them to put engineering at the forefront with the other manufacturing profs instead of leaving them behind all the time.

The additions for the holiday events are welcomed changes after many many years of being the same all over

Hopefully its not a "Coming Soon™" that we have to wait years for

Comment by bloodglas

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:28:00 -0500

Yo Blizz, where's my DK tier preview -.-

Comment by gnomesmacker

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:39:28 -0500

Wow, Azshara looks amazing. O.O

And, Uh....

Other things too.

Comment by whoami86

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:41:59 -0500

Yo Blizz, where's my DK tier preview -.-

This, over and over

Comment by Adamsm

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:42:07 -0500

Azshara actually has a pretty good looking model....now, we just need to see an update to her naga one heh. And like the new Dragonstalker helmet heh.

Comment by LordBalrog

on Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:50:41 -0500

I love the Hunter and Priest tier sets. I don't know why they didn't preview them when they did the others, it seems they are the best of the bunch.

Also, WTB upgrade of all NE females to the Azshara-model body. :D

Comment by aerion

on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:04:58 -0500

Ye gods, the detail put into these models is fantastic, and much of it is because of the textures... the "future" ones specifically caught my eye.

O.T.: Illidan and Azshara's models (including textures) are what night elves should look like... mainly because they're both represented AS night elves, uncorrupted and physically unaltered.

Risking to sound repetitive, I really wish they'd apply some much-needed texture-work, if nothing else, to the old races... the art department is getting better and surpassing themselves at texturing with each new patch, and it's a damn shame the old races still have their smudgy, blocky, ugly 1.0 textures...

One can only wish...

Comment by Rokrekler

on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:09:43 -0500

The amount of experience it takes to level 71-80 is retuned and reduced by 1/3rd. Many Group quests in Outland and Northrend have been re-tuned to allow players to complete them solo. They are no longer labeled as Group quests.

Meh, now it will take me 3-4 days extra to get to 80 :(But everything else is okay, especially the new models. The Deathwing elemental looks quite interesting.

Comment by Adamsm

on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:15:00 -0500

The amount of experience it takes to level 71-80 is retuned and reduced by 1/3rd. Many Group quests in Outland and Northrend have been re-tuned to allow players to complete them solo. They are no longer labeled as Group quests.

Meh, now it will take me 3-4 days extra to get to 80 :(But everything else is okay, especially the new models. The Deathwing elemental looks quite interesting.

What? The exp is being lowered and it's going to take you longer?

Comment by Atik

on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:19:01 -0500

Hasn't that NPC mount been in the files forever? I've always seen it in WMV.

That said, I'm likig Azshara's model for obvious reasons...

Comment by Rokrekler

on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:23:45 -0500

The amount of experience it takes to level 71-80 is retuned and reduced by 1/3rd. Many Group quests in Outland and Northrend have been re-tuned to allow players to complete them solo. They are no longer labeled as Group quests.

Meh, now it will take me 3-4 days extra to get to 80 :(But everything else is okay, especially the new models. The Deathwing elemental looks quite interesting.

What? The exp is being lowered and it's going to take you longer?

Whoops, read that backwards. Sorry about the misunderstanding. That, on the other hand, means that after Howling/Borean I can skip Dragonblight and go right to Grizzly Hills. Yay for faster leveling and content skipping:)

Comment by Atik

on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:27:34 -0500

The amount of experience it takes to level 71-80 is retuned and reduced by 1/3rd. Many Group quests in Outland and Northrend have been re-tuned to allow players to complete them solo. They are no longer labeled as Group quests.

Meh, now it will take me 3-4 days extra to get to 80 :(But everything else is okay, especially the new models. The Deathwing elemental looks quite interesting.

What? The exp is being lowered and it's going to take you longer?

Whoops, read that backwards. Sorry about the misunderstanding. That, on the other hand, means that after Howling/Borean I can skip Dragonblight and go right to Grizzly Hills. Yay for faster leveling and content skipping:)

Doesn't Grizzly Hills come before Dragonblight?

I, personnally, ope to level almost exclusively in DB: The only enjoyable Northrened zone.